Taking public transportin a new direction?
Boris Johnson put public transport at the heart of his domestic agenda. Liz Truss and her new transport secretary are being urged to keep up support Anne-Marie Trevelyan was this week appointed as secretary of state for transport by incoming prime minister Liz Truss. Trevelyan, who had previously served as secretary of state for international trade, succeeds Grant Shapps, who held the role for more than three years. Commenting on her appointment on Twitter, the MP for Berwick said: “I’m thrilled to have been appointed [transport secretary]. Transport is crucial to our lives - bringing people together, creating jobs and connecting the UK with the world.” Trevelyan takes charge at the Department for Transport during an extremely challenging period. Former prime minister Boris Johnson had placed improvements to public transport at the heart of his domestic agenda, but the pandemic saw usage plummet and it remains well below pre-Covid levels. The leadership campaign provided few clues on Truss’s views on public transport, apart from a commitment to proceed with Northern Powerhouse Rail in full. This would reverse Johnson’s controversial decision to cut back on these proposals. In the days before Truss was confirmed as leader, stakeholders in the UK public transport sector had set out their priorities for the new prime minister. Jonathan Bray, director of the Urban Transport Group, said: “As inflation rises, the cost of living crisis intensifies and the reality of climate change becomes ever more apparent, the need to secure the future of affordable and effective local public transport networks is more pressing than ever.”
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 “I’m thrilled to have been appointed ... Transport is crucial to our lives” Anne-Marie Trevelyan £81m e-bus order is largest outside193WrightbusLondonwillsupplybusestoFirst13 CambridgechargingCongestionforRevenueswould help fund better buses07 A chill wind for transport?publicNormanBaker on changes at No. 1016 Why haven’t we MaaSmadework?BeateKubitzsaysbusesaremissing 20 Boyd is new LothianfirstCompanybossappointsfemaleMD26 COMMCCOMMNEWSENVIRONMENTENTAREERSENT FORTEVERYNIGHT
ISSUE 272 9 SEPTEMBER 2022 NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS FOR A SECTOR ON THE MOVE
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, pictured at the wheel of an Alexander Dennis bus at last year’s COP 26 climate summit
FOR
Will our new transport?‘love’PMpublic
“I love buses, and I have never quite understood why so few governments before mine have felt the same way,” wrote Boris Johnson in the foreword of Bus Back Better, the National Bus Strategy for England, published last year. While Johnson may have kept a special place in his heart for the humble bus, he was a passionate advocate of all forms of public transport, from cable cars to high speed trains.
IN THIS ISSUE 18 DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY BECOME A BARRIER “It is morally wrong to deprive anyone of the ability to enjoy public transport or provide them with an inferior service’ just because they cannot afford or choose not to be equipped with technology,” writes Alex Warner REGULARS NEWS 03 ENVIRONMENT 13 INNOVATION & TECH 15 COMMENT 16 GRUMBLES 25 CAREERS 26 DIVERSIONS 28 ORGANISATION PAGE Abellio London 9 ASLEF 6 Arriva London 9 Atkins 5 Avanti West Coast 6 Brighton & Hove 26 Bristol Community Transport 11 Campaign for Better Transport 5 CPT 1, 4 Docklands Light Railway 8 First Bus 4, 13, 15, 28 Go-Ahead Group 5 Go-Ahead London 9 Go North East 13 Go South West 11 HCT Group 11 HITRANS 20-21 Liverpool City Region 5 Lothian 26 McGill’s Bus Group 4 Metroline 9 Mobilleo 20-21 Newport Transport 10 Nottingham Trams 26 Optibus 15 RATP Dev Transit London 9 Stagecoach 13 Stagecoach London 9 Stagecoach South Wales 5 Trandev Blazefield 11 Translink 13 TransPennine Express 6 Transport Focus 5 Transport for London 8, 9 Transport for Wales 10 Tyne & Wear Metro 28 Urban Transport Group 1, 4 Wrightbus 13 12 FIRST ROLLS O PTIBUS OUT ACROSS OPERATIONS
25 JOINING
Does Liz Truss love public transport? There is little sign of it yet, other than her commitment (during a leadership campaign visit to Leeds in July) to build Northern Powerhouse Rail in full, reversing Johnson’s decision to cut back on these proposals. We will have to wait and see, while reminding the government of the pivotal role that public transport plays in achieving so many of its core objectives.
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Robert Jack Managing Editor PASSENGER TRANSPORT passengertransport.co.ukforename.surname@editorial@passengertransport.co.uk Telephone: 020 3950 8000 Managing Editor & Publisher Robert Jack Deputy Editor Andrew Garnett Contributing Writer Rhodri Clark Directors Chris Cheek, Andrew Garnett, Robert Jack OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS Passenger Transport Publishing Ltd PO Box 5496, Westbury BA13 9BX, UNITED 020TelephoneKINGDOM(allenquiries):39508000 EDITORIAL editorial@passengertransport.co.uk ADVERTISING ads@passengertransport.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS subs@passengertransport.co.uk ACCOUNTS address.whichcontributionsTheWorldwide£140SubscriptionavailablePassengeraccounts@passengertransport.co.ukTransportisonlybysubscription.ratesperyear;UK(despatchbyRoyalMailpost);(airmail)£280editorwelcomeswrittenandphotographs,shouldbesenttotheaboveAllrightsreserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written Printedpermission.byCambrian Printers Ltd, The Pensord Group, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood, NP12 2YA © Passenger Transport Publishing Ltd ISSN20222046-3278 SUBSCRIPTIONS HOTLINE 020 3950 8000 PASSENGER TRANSPORT PO Box 5496, Westbury BA13 9BX 020 3950 editorial@passengertransport.co.uk8000 CONTENTS www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022| 03 HAVE YOUR SAY Contact us with your news, views and opinion at: editorial@passengertransport.co.uk
Declarations of love do not always guarantee long term loyalty, but Johnson’s government stood by public transport. We will never know what might have been achieved if the pandemic had not happened. Sadly it did happen and it decimated public transport use, and the main achievement has been maintaining something that resembles what we previously had. Billions have been spent on shoring up bus and rail services, and the final days of the Johnson regime saw a further extension of the Bus Recovery Grant, a £60m initiative to cap bus fares outside London to £2 in the first three months of next year and a long term funding settlement for Transport for London.
First Bus has teamed up with tech supplier Optibus to complete the digital transformation of its scheduling data, processes and systems across all UK operations.The operator claims that its migration to Optibus has achieved significant operational savings. A BALANCE THE SECTOR
22 STRIKING
There have been a flurry of strikes across the public transport sector in recent months, but direct action raises wider questions. “Passenger transport is a people business so without the right staff, it is all rather pointless,” writes Nick Richardson US? LL I CAN SAY IS ‘GOO D LUCK’! Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great Minster House, home of the Department for Transport. “The UK public transport market looks inherently risky to me and far from growing.”
CPT chief executive Graham Vidler wrote: “While the industry is working hard to adjust to a post-Covid landscape, this needs to be accompanied by a supportive environment ... There are huge benefits for the UK that can be realised with long-term planning and support for the critical services that the bus and coach industries deliver for the country and its communities. We ask that you work with us to do so.”
NORMAN BAKER: PAGE 16 NEWS ROUND-UP 04 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
“Everyone at McGill’s Group is excited about welcoming Scotland East into our stable and the opportunities that lie ahead,” said James Easdale, chairman of McGill’s Bus Group. “Our team are passionate about using our expertise to build the business in the years ahead so we can retain and attract new passengers across the region. We’re pleased the opportunity has arisen to acquire the business and we appreciate the efforts of First towards ensuring a smooth transition.”
McGill’s buys FirstScotland East business
The newly-acquired business will operate as McGill’s Scotland East. McGill’s CEO Ralph Roberts said: “In the weeks and months ahead, we will be engaging with our new colleagues for feedback and also listening to the views of local stakeholders as we seek to deliver the best bus service possible. We firmly believe that we can combine the advantages of the McGill’s Group with unique local transport brands and we will be announcing further details on that post-completion.”
First Bus has agreed to sell its First Scotland East business and all its routes in the region to McGill’s Group. The sale, which will complete later this month, includes all First Bus depots in Livingston, Larbert, Bannockburn, Balfron, as well as the Edinburgh open-top bus operation Bright Bus Tours. It includes over 200 buses and approximately 550 staff.
Representing the interests of bus and coach operators, the Confederation of Passenger Transport wrote an open letter to from Page 1
Continued
“Our team are passionate about using our expertise to build the business in the years ahead”James Easdale, McGill’s in Glasgow and Aberdeen,” said Duncan Cameron, managing director of First Bus Scotland. “As we’ve seen from their successful purchase of Xplore Dundee in recent times, McGill’s is an historic and trusted bus operator brand within Scotland and one we believe to be a safe pair of hands to take the Scotland East business forward successfully.”
A NEW DIRECTION FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT?
Owned by businessmen Sandy and James Easdale, McGill’s was already the largest independent bus operator in the UK with a fleet of approximately 440 vehicles. This includes the Xplore Dundee business purchased from National Express Group in January 2021.
PRIORITIES FOR THE NEW PM Provide stable and long-term BSIP (Bus Service Improvement Plan) funding across England, accelerating bus priority measures and other pro-bus policies. Work with the industry to rebuild passenger confidence with a strong pro-public transport message. Take immediate action to help the industry solve driver shortages, which should mirror the effort put into recruiting new HGV drivers. Work with industry to develop a fully funded, long-term roadmap for the delivery of zero emission buses, coaches and infrastructure
UK’s independentlargest bus group expands again
ACQUISITIONS
Bray continued: “The last government rightly stood by public transport during the pandemic. But with Covid restrictions behind us and high inflation in front of us, the new government needs to put public transport outside London on an even keel through a long term enhanced, simplified and devolved funding settlement which will allow us to provide the affordable public transport networks that our communities will rely on in the challenging times ahead.”
“This sale is part of a strategic refocusing of our Scotland business with significant investment in zero emission buses
First Bus will retain a strong presence in Scotland with its long-established businesses in Greater Glasgow and Aberdeen.
The Urban Transport Group and the Confederation for Passenger Transport have outlined their transport priorities for the new prime minister: Truss and her leadership rival Rishi Sunak in August. It highlighted the support the sector needs to maximise its contribution to the national challenges of cost of living, levelling up and net zero. Long-term funding, a roadmap for zero emission buses and coaches, and action to solve driver shortages were amongst CPT main priorities for the new prime minister (see panel).
Secure the future of affordable, local public transport networks through a long-term revenue settlement which is simplified, enhanced and devolved. Work with the city regions on the introduction of a London-style ticketing experience as soon as possible.Moreintegrated transport provision in the city regions through using the Transport Bill to give city regions greater powers over local bus services, heavy rail networks and new forms of transport like e-scooters.
Grant Shapps
In one of his last acts as secretary of state for transport, Grant Shapps confirmed plans for a £2 fare cap on single bus journeys in England
Shapps plansfor £2 England fare cap
The move has been welcomed by the bus sector where operators representing around 90% of the bus market have expressed support for the scheme.
confirms
Rotheram has also confirmed the cost of a MyTicket, which allows young people under the age of 19 to benefit from all day unlimited travel on the region’s bus network, will also remain frozen at £2.20 until“This2025.isjust a down payment on my wider ambitions for our region’s buses,” he said. “I’m working to take back control of our network, so that we can reinvest any profit we make back into our transport system.” CONFIRMS £2 FARE CAP PLAN
NEW DEPOT FOR CWMBRAN Stagecoach South Wales held a depot open day to celebrate the opening of its new depot at Cwmbran last weekend. The £7m facility can accommodate over 100 buses, and over 200 staff including bus drivers, maintenance staff as well as the company head office. The open day saw an array of vintage buses, open top bus trips and promotional stalls. Over £1,200 was raised for a local charity.
LCR
“Bus fare caps at £2 are an eye-catching initiative which could help attract new passengers onto the bus,” said Alison Edwards, policy director at the Confederation of Passenger Transport. “We look forward to understanding in detail how the proposed fare cap will work in practice to ensure it supports the long-term sustainability of busCampaignnetworks.”groups have also welcomed confirmation of the proposals. Paul Tuohy, chief executive of Campaign for Better Transport, said the scheme would be welcome news for millions of bus users. Meanwhile, Anthony Smith, chief executive of Transport Focus, said research by the watchdog continually suggested passengers wanted better value for money fares. “Cheaper fares are vital in winning passengers back and attracting new users,” he added. “This £2 deal should encourage more people to give the bus a go.”
LANCS REAL TIME ANALYSIS Lancashire County Council has completed a trial of junction analysis software that aims to speed up local buses. Working with Alchera Data Technologies and Atkins, the council has identified and lessened the impact of bus pinch points on the network, ultimately making buses faster and more reliable. It now plans a full rollout of the technology later in the year across all of Lancashire’s junctions on existing bus routes in a bid to reduce journey times. IN BRIEF Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram has announced adult single fares on all bus services will cost a maximum of £2 from September 18, making it cheaper for passengers to travel across the region. It follows the introduction of similar caps in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire in recent weeks.
“This £60m boost will mean everyone can affordably get to work, education, the shops and doctor’s appointments.”
There are also hopes the scheme could help rebuild bus patronage. The government pointed to the low bus fares pilot in Cornwall which launched earlier this year. The county’s bus network has already seen an indicative 10% increase in passenger numbers. “Buses are by far and away the most used form of public transport, so ensuring that almost all bus journeys are no more than £2 will assist passengers over the winter months and provide direct help to thousands of households across the country,” said Shapps.
“Ensuring that almost all bus journeys are no more than £2 will assist passengers over the winter months”
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 05
COVID RECOVERY The Department for Transport has followed up its recent extension of the Bus Recovery Grant for a further six months by confirming long-rumoured plans for a new £2 fare cap on single bus journeys in England from January to March 2023. In one of his final acts as transport secretary, Grant Shapps confirmed plans for the scheme on September 3. It will be backed by up to £60m of funding and aims to help passengers with travel costs for work, education, shopping and medical treatments over the winter months while they are facing pressures from the rising cost of living. The average single fare for a three-mile journey is estimated at over £2.80, meaning that the new fare will save passengers almost 30% of the price every time they travel. A single fare can cost as much as £6 for a journey in rural areas. The new cap means passengers in those areas could save more than £60 a month if they took four single trips a week.
GO-AHEAD CYBER ATTACK Go-Ahead Group this week admitted it was battling a cyber attack that has targeted back office systems at its bus operations. “Upon becoming aware of the incident, Go-Ahead immediately engaged external forensic specialists and has taken precautionary measures with its IT infrastructure whilst it continues to investigate the nature and extent of the incident and implement its incident response plans,” said a spokesperson. Go-Ahead also said the relevant regulators had been notified, including the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office.
Train slashesoperatorservices as driver strike looms
The strike will affect train drivers at Avanti West Coast; Chiltern Railways; CrossCountry; Greater Anglia; Great Western Railway; Hull Trains; LNER; London Overground; Northern Trains; Southeastern; TransPennine Express; and West Midlands Trains.
Phil Whittingham will leave firm on September 15 accept indefinite chaos on this railway line and the loss of those services. The key for me is what restores three or four trains to London, which is what we used to have. All the options have now to be looked at. Is this company the right company to carry on? Or do we need a change? This is now for the government today to answer.”
FirstGroup has announced Avanti West Coast managing director Phil Whittingham is to step down from his role on September 15 “in order to pursue other executive leadership hourleftservicesmonthintercityperiodopportunities”.ItfollowsatumultousfortheWestCoasttrainoperator.LastitwasforcedtoslashacrossitsnetworkthatitwithjustfourtrainsperoutofLondonEuston.Firstsaidthatfollowing
Burnham also called on the government to meet with him instead of “playing politics”. “This is England’s most important railway line linking its biggest cities,” he said. “We cannot operate like this when we’re trying to get the economy of the country going.”
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
TransPennine cuts as ASLEF members strike
Mick Whelan drivers union walk out at 12 train operators. The action on September 15 follows a stoppage in July by members at seven companies, and a further strike day in August at nine companies. “We don’t want to go on strike - withdrawing our labour, although a fundamental human right, is always a last resort for a trade union - but the train companies have forced our hand,” claimed ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan. “We want the companieswhich are making big profits, and paying their chief executives enormous salaries and bonusesto make a proper pay offer to help our members keep up with the increase in the cost of living.”
NEWS ROUND-UP 06 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
“In normal circumstances, we have enough people to fully operate our scheduled timetable, however the combination of factors has put unprecedented pressure on our ability to operate a consistent service,” said Jerry Farquharson, TransPennine Express’s service planning and performance director. “This temporary amended timetable for our services between the North West of England and Scotland will help us provide more stability and certainty for customers travelling on this route. “We have put in place measures to communicate this revised timetable to any affected customers and believe that by bringing this timetable in, we will help customers have more confidence and certainty in the delivery of our services.”
TransPennine Express is to bring in an amended timetable for its services on the West Coast Main Line between the North West of England and Scotland in a move the train operator says will “provide a more stable and reliable service”. The cuts to services follow those made by Avanti West Coast to its own services that left it operating just four trains per hour out of London Euston (PT271). From September 12, TransPennine Express said there will be a reduction from 40 to 31 scheduled services on the Anglo-Scottish route, with 15 northbound and 16 southbound services per day. Services withdrawn include some trains between Manchester and Glasgow, Liverpool and Preston and Manchester Airport andTheLancaster.company blamed a range of issues including sustained high levels of sickness and a training backlog as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic.It added the temporary timetable would mean it could reduce on-the-day or ‘evening before’ cancellations.
The new timetable will be brought in just days before members of the ASLEF train
“We don’t want to go on strike”
Under fire Avanti West Coast boss steps down
Whittingham’s departure, Steve Montgomery, the boss of the group’s rail business, would provide “leadership support” until a replacement was found. Criticism of Avanti has mounted in recent days. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said the train operator was in the “last chance saloon”. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme after Whittingham’s departure was confirmed, Burnham was critical of what he called a “serious management failure” at Avanti. “Finally, there seems to be an acknowledgment that major change is needed,” he said. “What chance“ThisofthetogovernmentInunions,pointedthereducedreasondeparture][Whittingham’srevealsisthatthegivenatthestartofthistimetableisclearlynottruestory.“Ifyouremember,thecompanythefingeratthetradesodidthegovernment.doingthat,Ithinktheallowedthecompanybeletoffthehook.”AskedifhewascallingongovernmenttostripAvantiitscontract,Burnhamsaid:companyareinthelastsaloonbecauseIcannot
Greater frequentPartnershipCambridgeplansmorebusservices
GCP brings together the city council, Cambridge University, Cambridgeshire County Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council in order to deliver the City Deal programme.
The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has published ambitious proposals for congestion charging to help fund a range of significant improvements to local buses.
“We can build confidence in the service and encourage people to make the switch to public transport”
DEVOLUTION
The improvements would be funded by road user charging, with all vehicle movements into, out of and within the so-called Sustainable Travel Zone (STZ) paying a flat daily charge between 7am and 7pm on weekdays.
“With the City Deal in place to forward-fund and accelerate the delivery of this transformative bus network - one of the largest ever investments in a UK bus network, alongside upgrades to active travel - we can build confidence in the service and encourage people to make the switch to public transport sooner.”
It also proposes longer operating hours with services running from 5am to 1am Monday to Saturday and 5am to midnight on Sunday with more frequent services - six to eight buses every hour in the city and from market towns, and hourly rural bus services.Userson this improved network would also see lower bus fares with a £1 fare cap in the city and a £2 cap for journeys in the travel to work area. The GCR also proposes new cross-city cycling corridors to boost active travel. The transformative package would result in 20,000 extra journeys made by bus and a further 60,000 additional trips by active travel every day to create a greener city region where people can travel easily and reliably on bus, bicycle and on foot,” said the GCP.
Approval for the consultation is likely to come later this month. “This is a once in a generation opportunity to create a worldclass transport network for Greater Cambridge and the wider area,” said Peter Blake, GCP transport director.
Greater Cambridge Partnership reveals plans for expanded bus network and capped fares that would be funded by a new congestion charge
‘Sustainable travel zone’ to fund better buses
Last month it revealed its proposed City Access package which calls for an expansion of bus provision in the area. It moots new bus routes, additional orbital and express services, and a huge increase in rural coverage, with buses supported by Demand Responsive Transport (DRT).
“We’ve listened to the views of the public to create a future bus network with cheaper fares, more services to more locationsincluding rural areas - and faster, more frequent services with longer operating hours to make public transport a reliable and competitive choice for everyone.
The government has announced it will supply extra funding to expand transport governance arrangements in the East Midlands as part of its wider devolution deal with the region. Levelling up secretary Greg Clark signed the deal that will pave the way for the first Mayoral County Combined Authority (MCCA). In the East Midlands. The combined authority will be made up of the upper-tier local councils - in this case the city councils in Derby and Nottingham, plus Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire county councils.
On the transport aspects of the agreement, the government recognises the East Midlands approaches the devolution deal from a different position to many devolution deal areas, as transport responsibilities are split between the four councils at present. It adds it will work with the constituent councils to agree on a transition plan for the governance of the transport aspects of the deal and it will also award a total of £500,000 of additional revenue funding in both 2023/24 and 2024/25 for “additional capacity” in order to progress a unified area-wide local transport plan.
Subject to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill receiving parliamentary approval and Royal Assent, the MCCA will also have the power to consult on bus franchising without permission from the transport secretary. The MCCA has also been tasked with exploring mass transit opportunities across its region, including integrating and then potentially expanding the existing NET light rail system. Move aims to create unified governance
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 07
“This is a once in a transportcreateopportunitygenerationtoaworld-classnetwork”
GCP says the new bus network and reduced fares would be phased in before road user charging was introduced. It adds the plans would be put to a final statutory public consultation before any decisions were made.
CONGESTION CHARGING
FIRST COUNTY CA WINS EXTRA TRANSPORT FUNDS
Strings
Heathrow fares rise to pay for bailout ... but ‘Free Travel Zone’ offers a cheaper loophole
Procurement of new Piccadilly line trains will now proceed Transport for London this week made changes to fares for journeys that start or end at Heathrow Airport in response to the conditions attached to government funding. From September 4 all Tube and Elizabeth line fares for journeys that go through Zone 1 and start or end at Heathrow Airport will be charged at peak rate. From the same date, the charge for a new Oyster card also increased from £5 to £7.
Journeys to the airport that avoid Zone 1 continue to have an off-peak fare, while journeys ending at stations before Heathrow, like Hatton Cross, Hounslow West and Hayes & Harlington will also not be affected by the changes.
However, some commentators quickly pointed out there is a loophole that allows passengers to avoid the fare increase.
The landmark deal will dedicate £80m every year to active travel schemes, expanding walking and cycling infrastructure. The deal also sees the establishment of an independent property company that will start on 20,000 homes on TfL’s land within 10 years.
The four different pension scenarios modelled by the review all produced savings of between £79.3m and £182.4m for alternative final salary options, and up to £154.4m a year for career average revalued earnings schemes.Khanhas also agreed to continue to progress ongoing initiatives to modernise, reform and allow TfL to become more efficient. He has also agreed to continue work on the introduction of driverless trains on London Underground. The government has also ordered Khan to find £500m to £1bn of new income-raising measures from April 2023. “This deal more than delivers for Londoners and even matches the mayor’s own pre-pandemic spending plans but for this to work, the mayor must follow through on his promises to get TfL back on a steady financial footing, stop relying on government bailouts and take responsibility for his actions,” said then transport secretary Grant Shapps. “Now is the time to put politics to one side and get on with the job.”
FUNDING The government, London mayor Sadiq Khan and Transport for London have finally agreed a long-term funding agreement for TfL that will see the government inject a further £1.2bn until March 2024 and ongoing revenue support should patronage not recover at the rate budgeted. The settlement will run until March 31, 2024. London transport commissioner Andy Byford claimed the agreement was “hard won” and means that TfL can now get on with supporting London’s recovery from the pandemic. It will also allow a number of investment projects to proceed. They include purchasing new trains for the Piccadilly line and Docklands Light Railway, completing in-progress schemes like modernisation of the sub-surface line of the London Underground and the Bank station upgrade.
attached to new agreement with government
As part of the settlement Khan has committed to submitting proposals to reform pensions, in line with TfL’s plans to become financially sustainable, by the end ofPensionSeptember.contributions cost TfL around £375m each year, though this figure rose to £401m in 2021. An independent review of TfL’s pension arrangements was commissioned by Khan last year. It found that reforms to TfL’s pension scheme could save as much as £100m a year.
NEWS ROUND-UP 08 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
TfL finally secureslong-term funding deal
BOOSTFREQUENCYFORDLR
NETWORKS Transport for London has confirmed a new timetable will be introduced on the Docklands Light Railway from September 26. It will mean more frequent services will run for longer in the evening and on weekends, supporting an increase in leisure travel. The changes also help minimise interchange waiting times with the Elizabeth line at Canary Wharf, Custom House and Stratford stations. New timetable will offer better Elizabeth line links
While Heathrow’s Free Travel Zone scheme was largely scrapped as a result of the pandemic, free travel continues to be offered on rail services between terminals. This extends to Hatton Cross station meaning Piccadilly line passengers can simply alight there, touch out, touch in again, and then continue their trip and avoid the extra peak fare charge.
Despite Arriva London South retaining its crown as London’s best performing bus operator - a position it has now held for more than a year - Go-Ahead London dominated the top of the performance league table, according to new performance statistics released by Transport for London. Arriva London South reported an Excess Waiting Time variance of 0.44 minutes, ahead of the 0.35 minutes reported by Go-Ahead-owned Blue Triangle. The network result was an EWT figure of 0.20 minutes. At the other end of the table RATP Dev’s London business struggled with all three of its operations turning in EWT variances below the minimum standard. Group’s south London operation is number one
18. LondonSovereign(RATPDev)
16. AbellioLondonWest
TfL bus tender logjam New
‘DANGLEWAY’ SPONSOR Transport for London has announced technology company IFS will sponsor the London Cable Car for a minimum of two years from next month. It will be called the IFS Cloud Cable Car with the rebranding from the previous sponsor, Dubai-based airline Emirates set to be completed in October. SCHEMES TO STAY Transport for London says three cycling schemes introduced during the pandemic on Tooley Street, between Chelsea Bridge and Wandsworth Town Centre, and between Oval and Elephant & Castle will now be retained after data suggested they had increased active travel within these areas.
251DevalsoSingaporean-owneddeckers.MetrolinegainstworoutesfromRATPTransitLondon:Route(Edgware-ArnosGrove) with a PVR of 12 new electric single deckers; and Route H17 (Wembley-Harrow) with a PVR of seven existing single deckers. RATP Dev Transit London gains Route 340 (EdgwareHarrow) from Arriva London with a PVR of nine existing hybrid doubleRoutesdeckers.remaining with existing operators are as follows (contracts have been awarded on a variety of vehicle types, many of them on the basis of electric buses): Abellio London: Routes 345 (Peckham-South Kensington), E5 (Toplocks-Perivale) and E7 (Ruislip-Ealing);ArrivaLondon: Routes 64 (Vulcan Way-Thornton Heath), 377 (Oakwood-Ponders End), and school bus routes 612, 685; Go-Ahead London: Routes 35/N35 (Clapham JunctionShoreditch), 40 (Dulwich LibraryClerkenwell), 147 (Ilford-Canning Town Station) and 213 (Sutton Bus Garage-Kingston);Metroline:Routes 83/N83 (Alperton-Golders Green), 114 (Ruislip-Mill Hill), 483 (HarrowWindmill Park); RATP Dev Transit London: Routes 288 294145(MarksHospital);(MansfieldcircularHospital),(Hatchend-NorthwickVernonKingsbury),Queensbury),(Broadfields-303(Edgware-H11(MountHospital-Harrow),H14ParkH18/H19(Harrowservices),andK4Estate-KingstonandStagecoachLondon:Routes62Gate-GascoigneEstate),(Dagenham-Leytonstone)and(NoakHill-HaveringPark).
15. SullivanBuses
PERFORMANCE
Funding clarity unlocks contracts for to 1.10 0.97 0.12 1.07 0.96 0.11 1.02 1.07 -0.04 1.07 1.19 -0.12 1.11 1.26 -0.15 0.99 1.18 -0.19 1.22 1.64 -0.42
19. LondonTransit(RATPDev)
June 24, 2022) EWT MINIMUM ACTUAL Q1 EWT STANDARD EWT VARIANCE POSITION/OPERATOR (MINS) (MINS) (MINS) 1. ArrivaLondonSouth 1.08 0.64 0.44 2. BlueTriangle(Go-Ahead) 1.02 0.68 0.34 3. LondonGeneral(Go-Ahead) 1.13 0.79 0.34 4. Metrobus(Go-Ahead) 1.02 0.68 0.34 5. LondonCentral(Go-Ahead) 1.20 0.88 0.32 6. TowerTransit 1.08 0.79 0.29 7. AbellioLondon 1.16 0.88 0.28 8. DocklandsBuses(Go-Ahead) 1.06 0.80 0.26 9. ArrivaLondonNorth 1.12 0.87 0.25 10. Selkent(Stagecoach) 1.15 0.91 0.23 11.. Metroline 1.14 0.92 0.22 11. MetrolineWest 1.12 0.90 0.22 Network Result 1.12 0.92 0.20 13. EastLondon(Stagecoach)
30 London bus routes announced LONDON BUSES OPERATOR LEAGUE TABLE - EXCESS WAITING TIME Source: TfL (12 weeks
CONTRACTS After months of uncertainty regarding its future funding arrangements, Transport for London announced a flurry of bus contract awards last week. In total, contracts for an unprecedented 30 routes were announced. While the majority see the routes remain with their incumbent operators, there are someGo-Aheadmovements.London makes gains in its traditional south west London heartlands while also expanding in east London. From RATP Dev Transit London it gains Route 265 (Tolworth-Putney Bridge) with a peak vehicle requirement of 12 new electric single deckers; from Stagecoach London Route 366 (RedbridgeBeckton) with a PVR of 18 new single deckers; from Arriva London Route 368 (Chadwell Heath-Harts Lane Estate) with a PVR of eight existing hybrid double deckers; and Route 533 (the temporary Hammersmith Bridge replacement service) from Metroline with a PVR of five existing single
17. LondonUnited(RATPDev)
IN BRIEF
14. HCTGroup
ARRIVA REMAINS ON TOP IN LONDON www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 09 Why haven’t we made MaaS work? Page 20
CYCLE
The withdrawal of all nine fflecsi-branded vehicles in Newport on September 25 is further evidence that DRT can be difficult to sustain in cities.
fflecsi
The other three pilots, which are continuing, cover Blaenau Gwent, a deprived former industrial area, and rural areas in Conwy and Pembrokeshire. The government has provided £1m for the pilots’ capital costs and £2.446m for revenue costs to date. Cardiff Council and several other local authorities have funded their own fflecsi pilots, using TfW’s booking system. Cardiff’s was short-lived because it attracted few users, but the authority is considering other areas where fflecsi could be viable.
Withdrawal of fflecsi-branded vehicles on September 25 is further evidence that DRT can be difficult to sustain in cities. Rhodri Clark reports DRT The large-scale deployment of Demand Responsive Transport in Newport is coming to an end after a Welsh Government-funded pilot found that the service required high subsidy.
Nine-vehicle Newportfflecsi pilot ends
DRT services in Bristol and Oxford have ceased. Arriva Click continues to operate in Liverpool but serves only the Speke area. Transport for Wales introduced four fflecsi pilots in 2020 with Welsh Government funding, testing the concept in a variety of settings. TfW provides an app and call centre for fflecsi bookings.
NEWS ROUND-UP 10 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
A vehicle waits outside Newport railway station
The initial pilot in Newport was expanded to test the concept on a larger scale in an urban area. The government’s funding for the Newport pilot was £1.287m, and fflecsi was used for 143,239 passenger journeys from May 2020 to the end of July 2022. Subsidy per passenger was approaching £9, but the period included times when all public transport received unusually high subsidies to reflect Covid-19 travel restrictions. The Newport pilot was due to end three months ago but was extended to enable collection and analysis of more data. This has proved valuable for Newport Transport, which operated the city’s fflecsi services. Last weekend it introduced many service improvements, building on the insight into travel demand which the fflecsi pilot had provided. As well as extending the operating hours on many routes, the timetable changes include diversions or extensions of routes at certain times of the day to meet demand which was previously not apparent. Service frequency on one route has doubled across most of the day, with the additional hourly service taking a different route through Caerleon from the established service. Newport Transport’s own established DRT services for peripheral rural areas willLastcontinue.spring, TfW upgraded the fflecsi software to direct users in Newport and Conwy to scheduled bus services instead of the requested fflecsi journey where appropriate (T265). Research by Transport Focus, published last month, found that this caused users some concern. One woman who took part in the research said the scheduled service would leave her with a 15-minute walk, alone, in the dark. “I don’t want to use them, I want to use fflecsi,” sheAnecdotalsaid. evidence suggests that fflecsi vehicles usually carried very small numbers of people, for whom a taxi would have sufficed. Despite the nine vehicles available, prospective users found that fflecsi was not always available at the required times. One user told Transport Focus that it was impossible to book fflecsi to and from her workplace for all five days of the week at her commuting times. Late changes to previously booked journeys also caused difficulties, forcing some users to find alternative transport. This contributed to the number of booked fflecsi journeys which were not made. The fflecsi concept has been more successful in other areas and looks likely to be a permanent aspect of the transport landscape in Wales. A TfW spokeswoman said: “The introduction of fflecsi was accelerated in response to the pandemic, enabling people to book a seat, limiting capacity and maintaining social distancing and filling gaps in the public transport network which came about during Covid.“Aswe come out of Covid, there is no doubt that some services will be better suited to a more traditional bus service, which has been shown in Newport. “We don’t believe that fflecsi services are less relevant [after Covid], and in some cases fflecsi is carrying more passengers than the previous service did and has substantially increased access to public transport. Denbigh is a great example of this.”
“As we come out of Covid, there is no doubt that some services will be better suited to a more traditional bus service”
LANCS TO BENEFIT FROM £1 BUS FARE
IN BRIEF
Transdev discountedcontinuesfaresscheme
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 11
There was further turmoil at HCT Group last week when the troubled social enterprise abruptly pulled the plug on its commercial bus operations in the Bristol area just days after closing its community transport operations there. Bristol Community Transport (BCT) operated the flagship M1 Metrobus between the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre and Hengrove Park via the city centre on behalf of FirstWest of England as well as several other local bus routes.“Ithas been a privilege to serve the people of Bristol over the past decade and we are proud of the role we have played in the development of part of the Metrobus network, which has been critical to delivering great
Commercial director Paul Turner said that, together with the launch of the new £2 one-way and reduced day tickets in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire last weekend, they represent a significant price reduction for many Transdev Blazefield passengers. In West Yorkshire, Transdev has also introduced a new £5 all-day KDAY ticket, which can be used on all Keighley Bus Company routes in West and North Yorkshire - plus for the first time, on all Team Pennine buses in West Yorkshire and into GreaterWithinManchester.WestYorkshire and Greater Manchester, Transdev day return fares currently priced at £4 or more will be withdrawn as it will now be cheaper to buy two single tickets.
ACQUISITIONS
DYSLEXIA TOOLKIT LAUNCH Go South West, has launched a dyslexia toolkit to support colleagues who have been diagnosed with the condition. The initiative is part of an inclusion strategy to support neurodiverse colleagues. The toolkit offers coloured overlays to help those who struggle with reading text on white paper;online and paper to-do lists; and the ability to record meetings; and additional time for completing paperwork at the end of shifts.
Bristol is latest HCT operation to close Operator ‘forced to close’ as London operations are sold connections for people living and working in South Bristol to other parts of the city,” said a HCT Group spokesperson. “We are deeply saddened to have been forced to make the decision to cease operations as BCT, but multiple challenges such as the financial impact of the pandemic and the current surge in fuel and labour costs have left us with no alternative.” After a brief two-day suspension, First West of England took on operation of the M1 Metrobus route with the West of England Combined Authority working with local councils to identify new operators for the remainder of BCT’s network. The closure of the Bristol operation follows the collapse of two of the social enterprise’s bus operations in Yorkshire in Bristol theTransportCommunityoperatedM1Metrobusroute early August (PT271). Meanwhile, the operator confirmed the sale of its London bus interests to Stagecoach on August 27. Around 500 members of staff and 160 buses covering 17 London bus routes transferred to the Perth-based group as well as its two leasehold depots at Ash Grove and Walthamstow Avenue in east “TheLondon.location of the depots at Ash Grove and Walthamstow Avenue are a good strategic fit for Stagecoach’s existing London operation and provide the opportunity to extend the area currently served,” said a Stagecoach spokesperson. Martin Griffiths, chief executive of Stagecoach, said: “We’re very pleased to be expanding our London bus operations even further and we look forward to welcoming our new colleagues to Stagecoach.“Stagecoach has a positive track record of operating high quality bus services in London on behalf of TfL. The 17 new routes we will be operating from Ash Grove and Walthamstow Avenue depots will complement our existing operations.” operations
“We’re very pleased to be expanding our London bus
FARES Transdev Blazefield has said it will continue with discounted evening bus fares in Lancashire alone after a wider scheme helped rebuild evening bus patronage across its network. The £1 flat fare is valid for any single journey on any evening after 7pm. It was first launched by the Harrogate-based bus operator across its network during the Covid pandemic in June 2021, as part of a package of measures designed to restoreTransdevpatronage.Blazefield claims it has sold a million of the cheap evening bus tickets since the scheme was launched, while also recording a 72% increase in evening journeys withinWhileLancashire.thescheme has been previously available across its North of England network, the French-owned operator has confirmed it will continue for the immediate future for journeys wholly within Lancashire alone.
even further”
It now appears that Inverness will pip Derry to the post, after Stagecoach announced a £9.1m investment in 25 electric midibuses for the city (PT271). Perth will also beat Derry and Coventry in the race. It already has nine zero-emission buses and Stagecoach will introduce a further 13 early next year.
The order will be split between the following five areas: Leicester (68 buses) in partnership with Leicester City Council;York(44 buses) in partnership with City of York Council; Leeds (32 buses) in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority; Norwich (15 buses) in partnership with Norfolk County Council; Portsmouth (34 buses) in partnership with Portsmouth City Council and Hampshire County Council.Eachregional project will be completed over the course of the next two years. It means that First Bus will have over 500 EV buses in operation in what is a big step towards its pledge of an entirely zero emission fleet by 2035. The new buses will be fully built in Northern Ireland at the Wrightbus facility in Ballymena. First Bus will work with the bus builder to help upskill current and newTransportengineers.minister Baroness Vere commented: “This marks a key stepping-stone towards our National Bus Strategy commitment of funding 4,000 zero-emissions buses, as we decarbonise and level up transport across the country. “Not only does it drive forward our journey to Net Zero, but will also support hundreds of green, high-skilled jobs in the UK.”
First Bus has worked closely with five local authority partners to secure the funding, which helps to bridge the gap between the cost of a Euro 6 diesel bus and the electric equivalent, as well as the relevant infrastructure costs necessary to charge the vehicles.
£81m e-bus order is biggest outside London
Wrightbus will supply First Bus with fleet of 193 electric buses “[This order] will also high-skilledhundredssupportofgreen,jobs”
ELECTRIC BUSES
ELECTRIC BUSES
DERRY E-BUS DEPOT UPGRADE TO COMMENCE
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When Nichola Mallon, then Northern Ireland’s infrastructure minister, announced the investment in November 2021, she said it would make Derry “the first city in these islands to have a zero-emission bus fleet”, covering local services. Subsequently, in January 2022 the West Midlands Combined Authority said that Coventry would be “the UK’s first all-electric bus city”. Coventry’s full electric fleet will be in place by 2025.
City will be among first to have all-electric bus fleets
9
ENVIRONMENT
A Translink spokeswoman told PassengerTransport: “Thirty-eight zero emission battery electric buses will enter the Foyle Metro fleet next year, representing an investment of over £30m. This will make Derry~Londonderry [one] of the first cities in the UK and Ireland to have a fully zero-emission bus fleet, when all vehicles go into passenger service in The2023.”first of the electric buses will be delivered early next year. The full fleet is expected to be in place by the end of the year. “This is part of our journey to make public transport carbon net zero by 2040 and be climate positive by 2050,” added the spokeswoman.
Work will commence this autumn on upgrading Translink’s Londonderry bus depot for electric vehicles, ahead of the city’s entire network converting to electric operation next year.
NINE ON THE TYNE Go North East has added nine more Yutong electric buses to its zero emission fleet. They have been introduced as a result of a £2m investment with top-up funding from the government’s Ultra-Low Emission Bus Fund.
First Bus has placed one of the UK’s largest electric bus orders with manufacturer Wrightbus, following successful bids with local authorities as part of the Department for Transport’s ZEBRA (Zero Emission Bus Regional Area) funding scheme. The £81m order, totalling 193 buses, is the largest electric bus purchase outside of London and will see new zero emission buses being rolled out across England from March 2023. First Bus will invest £43m in the new vehicles and will be supported to complete the electric fleet project with a £38m grant from the DfT.
www.passengertransport.co.uk September 2022
Baroness Vere
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SOFTWARE First Bus has teamed up with tech supplier Optibus to complete the digital transformation of First Bus’ scheduling data, processes, and systems across all UKTheoperations.roll-outof
Over the course of their fiveyear partnership, First Bus has tested many new Optibus features in live environments, helping to tailor the product to real-life scenarios and unique challenges faced by operators across the UK, spanning electric vehicle deployment, cost efficiency, and effective network redesign to meet new travel patterns.
Optibus across First Bus will enable all of its operating companies to improve the service and operational efficiency of 4,000 buses, leading to improved services for over one million daily passengers and smoother, faster work processes for dozens of schedulers.
Optibus general manager, EMEA, Dave Joshua, said: “Making public transportation better requires input from operators, drivers, and schedulers on the frontlines of daily operations.“FirstBus has been a valuable partner in helping Optibus to develop custom technological solutions for the UK public transport market, and beyond. We are grateful for their insight.”
First Bus claims that its migration to Optibus has achieved significant operational savings across all operations. It has also simplified the process of making network changes and improved the lives of schedulers.
“First Bus has been a valuable partner in helping Optibus to develop custom technological solutions”Dave Joshua, Optibus
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 15
The company now has the capability to be more agile with network decision making and explore enhancement to work patterns and rosters using advanced duty optimisation algorithms and an automated rostering product, bringing realtime and localised solutions to the UK public transport industry.
First Bus rolls Optibusout across operations
System helps discover efficiencies and improve roster design
First Bus chief commercial officer Simon Pearson said that the implementation would improve the lives of staff and customers whilst making the operator more agile as a business in facing challenges. “We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with the team at Optibus to discover opportunities for improvement and to push the UK public transport industry forward,” he said.
So we do indeed have Liz Truss as the new prime minister, as I predicted in my last column for Passenger Transport. Though that prediction hardly qualifies me as some sort of Mystic Meg.
The wait is over and we now have a new prime minister and a new secretary of state. does this mean for the transport agenda?
What
16 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk COMMENT
Moreover, Liz Truss is the first ever leader of her party to triumph when a majority of her own MPs did not support her, and plumped instead for Rishi Sunak, who now looks destined for a period of near oblivion on the backbenches.ThenewPM
Ms Truss looked home and dry from the off, though the margin of victory, at 57%-43%, was tighter than many predicted. The opinion polls, if they can be believed, suggested that the more she was exposed to the airwaves, the less enthusiastic people became.
Liz Truss herself seems to want to restart fracking, and prioritise getting more oil and gas out of the North Sea, which are not simply bad ideas in terms of the environment, but not sensible economically either. Renewables are now the cheapest form of energy to produce, and the timescale for getting extra capacity online is so much quicker than any fossil fuel endeavours off the coast. She has not said a great deal yet on transport modes, though depressingly she seems to want to prioritise the construction of more roads. I also note she took a private jet to Balmoral and back to see the Queen, and a separate one from Boris Johnson, when there are plenty of flights from London to Aberdeen, or indeed something called Zoom. She has also announced she intends to support the marginal Doncaster Sheffield Airport, misleadingly called Robin Hood as the area for some reason believes it has more claim on the legendary hero than Nottingham. She does have close ties to two right-wing think tanks, the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs, both of whom support road pricing. Perhaps at last the government will actively adopt and promote a policy everyone knows to be inevitable.
In any case, that direction of travel does not bode well for the new prime minister, and 57-43 is the tightest margin in a contest for Tory party leader since the present system involving the membership began.
A sensible first step would have been to create a government that represented all shades of opinion within what has been a fractious Conservative Party. Indeed, there is even a public interest argument for reaching out to the other political parties as well, to try to find some common ground on elements of her hugely challenging in-tray. But instead she has surrounded herself with loyalists, sacking those who supported Rishi Sunak, and in doing so moved the party even further to the right, and further away from mainstream public opinion. What does this mean for the transport agenda?Tostart with, it does not look good for those of us who believe in robust action to lessen the impact of climate change. We now have the 19th century Jacob Rees-Mogg in charge of the business department where climate change policy is decided. Our Old Etonian is among the tiny percentage of the population who is something of a climate denier.
Liz speakingTruss outside Downing Street after primebecomingminister
True, the well-regarded Alok Sharma remains as president of COP 26 but I expect this is firstly because the role is time limited anyway, and secondly because tackling climate change is so far down Liz Truss’s list of priorities that for her it is neither here nor there who carries out this role.
faces a horrendous in-tray, including rampant inflation, massive energy hikes, a very stretched NHS, a wave of strikes unseen since the 1970s, and the continuing war in Ukraine. Her promised tax cuts, coupled with an expected and speedy U-turn on what she pejoratively called “handouts”, will bleed the Treasury badly. We are already seeing big downward pressure on the pound, including against the dollar, where parity for the first time ever is within sight. Given that oil is traded in dollars, that can only worsen inflation and add fuel to the energy fire.
A chill wind for public transport?
BAKENORMANR
The original Conservative party rules intended to allow members to change their vote during the campaign if they wanted, but that was stopped due to fear of fraud. We will never know what would have happened had that provision remained in place.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, pictured at the wheel of a bus during last year’s COP 26 summit
Perhaps, but a more likely and more depressing reason is that they felt a chill wind coming towards public transport from the likely new regime, and did not trust Truss and Co to continue with the plans that were being worked up, and they wanted to make sure they were not lost. This would also account for the fact that the mechanism of the £2 flat fare is far from fully worked out. That
The majority of the time she has spent on transport has been to campaign for the dualling of the A1 from her constituency of Berwick-Upon-Tweed north to Edinburgh. Now for all I know there may be a good case for this, but undoubtedly such a road scheme, if introduced, can only adversely affect the parallelBeyondrailway.that, she has taken an interest in the LNER service which serves her patch and in fact welcomed the decision to return the east coast main line franchise to Department for Transport control.
Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
traffic commissioners in respect of services intended to be withdrawn on the first day after the support was due to run out.
The fact that her previous government post was as a minister covering the climate change brief is hopefully a sign that she will be appreciative of the challenges here.
announcements shortly before the change of prime minister”
9 September 2022 | 17
“There were a couple of big
On the positive side, she has campaigned for rail improvements in her own constituency. Generally, she is strongly in favour of private sector involvement in rail, which of course is being sharply diminished by the Williams-Shapps plan. And what of our new transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan? Her interest in transport hitherto appears to have been limited. As a backbench MP, she asked, in round figures, zero written questions on transport.
is in fact the explanation given to me by my Downing Street source.
“She does to be fair seem one of the more engaged and more moderate members of the cabinet”
One was to extend the emergency support for buses for a further six months, which was a welcome surprise for many. It had long been signalled that the Covid recovery support would end this autumn. It is only a pity the announcement could not have come a couple of weeks earlier, for it seems very likely bus operators will have submitted notifications of route withdrawals to their traffic commissioner and may not have done so had they known of the further support now forthcoming. The government announcement came on the very last day for submissions to
The other welcome development, though less of a surprise, was the announcement of a £2 maximum fare for bus journeys taken in the first three months of 2023.
www.passengertransport.co.uk
Certainly at 12.30, an urgent question from the Stockport MP on the shambles that is Avanti West Coast was answered by Trudy Harrison (rather than by rail minister Wendy Morton), whose mind must have been half distracted by the question as to whether or not this was her last duty as a transport minister. Observers will have noticed that there were a couple of big announcements shortly before the change of prime minister.
Why was this bit of good news in particular bundled out of the door so near to the change of prime minister? On the Saturday before the handover in fact. Was it because either or both Boris Johnson or Grant Shapps wanted to add this to their list of achievements?
It remains to be seen where Anne-Marie Trevelyan will end up in the rankings of transport secretaries. She does, to be fair, seem one of the more engaged and more moderate members of the cabinet, though frankly that is not saying much. Perhaps more to the point, will she be allowed to get on with the job, or will the climate change scepticism and extreme free market right-wing ideology that seems very likely to come from No10 and No11 derail her?
The DfT will of course carry on with its forward plans, but the personality and priorities of the person at the top can make a huge difference. Grant Shapps in my view turned out to be quite a good transport secretary - on top of the detail, interested in the subject, committed to public transport.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As I write (on Wednesday lunchtime), we do not know what changes will be taking place within the ranks of the junior ministers.
Contrast that, for example, with the reign of Chris “Failing” Grayling and his multi-million pound splurge on non-existent ferries.
ALEX WARNER
We must not deprive anyone of public transport, or offer them an inferior service, because they can’t or won’t use technology Barcode ticketing is great for those who want it - but don’t force us to use technology
18 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk COMMENT
Last month, I mentioned to my 15-year-old niece that I am worried about growing up in a world where I am unable to facilitate my life because I can’t keep up with technology. I was shocked when her face lit up, almost in unburdened relief and she replied: “Do you know, Uncle Alex, I’ve been really worrying about that too - I thought it was just me!”. I felt relieved though somewhat concerned that a Zoomer/Generation Z, such as her - and a savvy one too - was similarly fretting. My conundrum has been caused by my Crystal Palace FC season ticket now being only available in an ‘Apple wallet’ now. As recently as a month ago, I had no idea whatsoever what a wallet on a phone was and I’m still confused by it. Unless you can prove a medical condition, Crystal Palace won’t issue you a plastic ticket. Transport is not so different to all the other customer service providers. If technology hasn’t gone as advanced as sport, there’s always that stressful threat that it will. Already, the number of ticket machines has diminished and ticket offices are on death row. We can posture the passing of paper tickets, but the end is inevitable. We’ll all be forced to buy online, and if your printer has enough cartridge, paper and actually works and if you’ve downloaded Acrobat Reader and have PDF, you can print your ticket at home or bung it on your phone - if you have one. Thankfully, this isn’t actually too challenging, but the problem is that innovators think they’ve got to constantly innovate and before long, they will insist on these wretched Apple wallets, requiring you to remember your Apple ID. I’m getting sick of being told all the time to fill in a Google or Apple ID, placing a defiant barrier to entry on everything in life. Even buying online and picking up your ticket isn’t fool proof. Recently, a client of mine bought me a ticket for a trip to visit him but because I was picking it up from the station and not using his credit card to prove my ID, no ticket was issued. For the first and only time ever, I travelled ticketless - the conscience clear as the ticket had been paid for anyway. Then, as I indicated, last issue, the one machine at my local SWR station, Shepperton, hasn’t enabled tickets to be picked up for weeks now and you can only do this at the ticket office - which is open only in the mornings and not at weekends. Transport bigwigs and particularly youngsters don’t realise how disorientated old-timers get when they travel. I’ve witnessed my dad completely bamboozled if you try and deviate him from his set ways. The array of tickets with their various restrictions isn’t designed to give us choice as customers but instead hinders and confuses. Then there are all these supposed pay-as-you-go schemes and a proliferation of ‘readers’ at stations. Why in 2022 have we not achieved a universal nationwide smartcard? Back to Shepperton where there’s been what looks like an Oyster reader for years on the entrance, but we’re not in the system, so I am still utterly clueless as to its purpose in life. There’s nothing to tell us. All these devices, signs, physical objects and ticketing schemes just make us feel even more overwhelmed about the complexity of travelling with a ticket. Then we have apps. If I hear the words, ‘you can download the app’ one more time I will break down in sorrow. I am not seeking to expand the number of apps on my screen anyway, as the more there are the harder it is to find anything of use and also, apparently, it drains my battery. But most importantly, I don’t want to look at a phone screen any longer than necessary - there’s a whole world out there, of people, scenery and spectacles to be watched. Why would I want to miss out with my head shoved in a phone?
In Crystal Palace’s exciting ‘welcome to the new season’ email telling fans stuff to titillate them for the coming months ahead - a fans zone, better food, swanky replica kit, a star signing or two - they also thrillingly said that charging our phones was ‘part of the matchday experience’. Such fun eh? But, if transport is making our journey experience more reliant on a mobile phone then they will need to up the game, by installing plugs and charging points on all trains and buses - maybe even give the driver or on-board conductor a few spare chargers to loan out for those who have left theirs at home and can’t show their ticket properly for inspection. The plug sockets should work too and not be a ‘nice to have’ or ‘the last thing to fix’ when the engineers go through their vehicle defect log. Station waiting rooms should have sockets everywhere. Wi-Fi needs to be improved if the use of a phone or ‘mobile device’ is the ‘be all and end all’ - yet there are now wholesale inter
Don’t let technologybecome a barrier
Other elements of the journey experience that must not exclude those hesitant when using technology, include delay repay, accessing real-time service information (don’t assume you’ve done the job by putting it out on Twitter) and being able to see timetable details in full - too many websites have the functionality whereby customers put in ‘to’ and ‘from’ for their specific journey but many folk still like the reassurance of knowing which destination to look out for on the front of their train or screen. Maps, of course, are a dying art and with each passing year, they become fewer on websites. How I hanker for the days of my youth and my dog-eared London bus map that showed everything within the M25.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alex Warner has over 29 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector
That’s just the way I am at times and I know I’m reflective of a not insignificant portion of transport’s customer base. Truly customercentric companies will adapt to meet my needs.
Job applications, role specifications, corporate mission statements, vision, values and behaviours all obsess about being innovative and progressive, which is all well and good but sometimes this spawns a culture whereby folk are dreaming up ideas just for the sake of it. This irritates me - last week I was considering upgrading to First on LNER but saw something called Seat Frog and just got confused and didn’t enquire further. There are operators which insist on QR codes to access at-seat catering menus and service. Granted, I’m sure it is actually quite easy, but I have this stubborn, unadventurous streak that makes me shut down if I think it is going to be moderately complicated or a venture into the unknown.
How soon before the tech providers cotton on to the fact that they could hike their prices up as much as possible knowing that access to experiences that are previously part and parcel of our lives, such as travelling, now rely on them and their devices entirely?
Many senior citizens have low incomes and the cost of living crisis exacerbates this. Even if they had the desire to get online, the cost of a smartphone, laptop, iPad or printer could be prohibitive as it could be for all generations.
It is morally wrong to deprive anyone of the ability to enjoy public transport or provide them with an inferior service just because they cannot afford or choose not to be equipped with technology. Shame on any transport provider that designs their customer proposition such that it propagates this inequality. This is a battle worth fighting, not just for us lot over 50 but my young niece and her generation too.
I think that transport company employees feel that to ‘stand still’ is to be frowned upon.
The ‘Passenger Assist’ service on the rail network should also be improved - currently, it can be fragile and break down quite easily.
“If I hear the words, ‘you can download the app’ one more time I will break down” city routes emanating from London that are almost bereft of an internet signal. Last month, I travelled from London to watch football at Liverpool and I’d received an email in advance telling me the tickets for the game in my wallet had been deactivated and not to bother turning up! My mate sent me a couple more, but I spent hours perusing IT websites to understand the ins and outs of NFC barcodes to see that they would still work and everything would be fine - which it was. Imagine if transport customers had this level of stress added to the already onerous experience! There must also be very high profile reassurance that if technology fails then staff will be sympathetic. For the elderly, transport companies should focus on the fine detail of the touchpoints that are really important to them when planning and embarking on a journey. National Rail Enquiries and operators, when specifying the trains for their journey, should advise on step-free access information, ticket office availability, provision of toilets on trains and stations, where to sit to be closest when alighting to your interchanging platform and train, who to contact en route for assistance, how a taxi can be pre-booked when alighting and so on. Of course, some of this detail is already available but it requires fishing around on websites with plenty of clicks, rather than a tailored, ‘one stop shop’ itinerary. The number of clicks required is indeed a turn off for the non-tech savvy. For anyone with elderly parents, you’ll know the tell-tale signs of brains feeling fatigued and frazzled with frustration creeping in when persistent decisions - such as what buttons to click and where - are required. So too, the feeling of being overpowered with garish colours, gizmo banners and funky images appearing randomly on screen. The size of screens is also important - most notably on ticket machines, seat reservation panels and visual information systems. For websites, text should be large and ‘less is more’ when it comes to content.
Not enough train companies, despite having dedicated accessibility and inclusion managers, pour over the detail to assess the service and feel the pain of any shortcomings. The majority of bus companies, meanwhile, don’t have a dedicated service or manager to deal with accessibility. How ‘Passenger Assist’ is marketed and perceived is also important - many folk assume that you have to be registered disabled to be able to use it. Help should be at hand. Closing ticket offices is a dagger blow to customers who don’t have the patience or even the ability to preplan and book their journey. The alternative of providing roving staff to compensate, eagerly on the look-out for disorientated old-timers is, as I’ve long contested, a dream. It just ain’t gonna happen. There should be Help Points close by, all with cameras, so that an assistant can identify and help guide customers. They should be staffed on the patch or nearby and not the other side of the world, because that local, detailed knowledge and empathy is crucial when a nervous customer is feeling confused and anxious, out on the network. Transport should look to recruit a greater cadre of older staff on our networks and in call centres. I genuinely believe that experience and age make you more appreciative and aware of the specific needs of elderly customers and those with little or no grasp of technology. Call me a curmudgeon, but the problem of youngsters today is that they see the answer as always residing on their tablet. We shouldn’t just focus on our own staff. Retirement and warden assisted homes, local community groups that attract the elderly and organisations such as Age Concern all have a part to play. We should engage with them so they can provide proactive assistance and information to elderly customers who wish to embark on a journey and want to know how today’s transport network works. For those who haven’t mustered up the courage to travel for some time because they think that transport has left them behind, they need to be shown that it is still designed for them and they haven’t been excluded. Confidence is key. Finally, this situation could worsen further.
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 19
In England, three Future Transport Zones
The Jelbi app BEATE KUBITZ 20 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk COMMENT MOBILITY AS A SERVICE
With the cost of living crisis biting, people need alternatives to expensive cars and expensive fuel bills. Over in Europe, entire countries are trialling super low cost public transport (¤9 per month for local transport anywhere in Germany being the highest profile example). Many link together their core public transport with shared bikes and other services to enable people to cover the last mile easily using Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platforms.
To continue our Germany comparison, in Berlin you can use the Jelbi app on all public transport and to summon on-demand buses, in the less well served eastern suburbs, or to book e-scooters, car-club vehicles or bike share.
Why haven’t wemade MaaS work?
In the UK it has been hard to create a Mobility as a Service offering centred around public transport, and that must change
A potential breakthrough is that over the last year, we have seen a number of MaaS pilot projects underway, including three Future Transport Zones with funding to create MaaS platforms and Manchester recently announcing a new MaaS partnership. It’s possible that these auger some improvement, however the path is not smooth, and experience to date suggests that the efficacy of MaaS apps is dependent on operators and partners. In Scotland, the HITRANS app, GO-HI, uses the Mobilleo MaaS platform. Project partners include Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Car Club, Bewegen, Brompton Bike Hire, Stagecoach Bus, West Coast Motors, Inverness Taxis, ScotRail, Loganair, Shotl, Skedgo, Orkney Ferries and Northlink Ferries. Whilst the technical work to integrate most partners is complete, bus ticketing requires an inelegant workaround and the ticket types offered are limited to daily, weekly and monthly passes which do not match those offered on Stagecoach’s own website in association with its travel planner. With this limitation, and without a ‘best price guarantee’, it will be difficult for the app to reach its full potential. Cities internationally which have strong MaaS offerings centre that offer around public transport, linking in ‘last mile’ offers including DRT and bike share to enhance their network. There is a demonstrable reduction in dependency on privately-owned cars where this takes place (for instance in Strasbourg, 60% of survey respondents of users of the combined DRT and public transport service reported reducing their car mileage since its introduction and 20% reported reducing their number of vehicles owned). However, in the UK, it has been hard to create a MaaS offering centred around public transport in this way. It seems obvious to state it, but without regulation there is nothing to compel bus operators to participate in MaaS and in practice participation is piecemeal and not optimised. It’s unlikely that the comparative weakness of MaaS in the UK is a coincidence.Whilstissues for operators are understandable and much discussed - MaaS adds a layer of cost of doing business, and may (in some models) interpose a layer between operator and passenger - the available evidence is that it grows the market. However, the best evidence we have indicates that the overall impact is positive. When the most ‘MaaS-like’ system in the UK was introduced - the London Oyster - Transport for London saw rapid financial benefits. Oyster provided a best value guarantee as well as ticketing across bus, rail andShashiunderground.Verma,TfL’s chief technology officer and director of Customer Experience, has previously remarked: “The examples we can cite about the increase in public transport usage through the creation of an integrated ticketing platform in Oyster and contactless are very genuine. On National Rail, the introduction of Oyster pay as you go increased traffic by about 5% or 6%. That is a very substantial amount of increase, especially when it is marginal revenue coming into the National Rail system.”
There are real world Jelbi stations - hubs for the vehicles on offer from mobility providers that partner with the app - which are often at public transport interchanges. Other providers integrated in the app include Emmy, Lime, Nextbike, Miles, Mobileeee, Nextbike, Taxi Berlin, Tier, Voi, and VBB - a total of 45,000 vehicles and 12 mobility offerings integrated into the platform. About 8% of the total population of Berlin have used the app. Not so much in the UK. We are way behind our continental neighbours on linking transport to give passengers effective mobility networks. The closest to this in the UK is London’s Oyster - but this notably does not integrate London’s excellent and well-used bike share scheme (or any of the newer private sector offerings).
www.beatekubitz.com
A few years ago, TfGM ran a MaaS simulation with Atkins, using the transport available - including the metro, buses, the on-demand access bus, taxis and active travel routes. It demonstrated that good journey planning could create a more compelling transport offer and that people would use it and travel by car less, given better information and a combination of options. It was particularly interesting that people on the trial hadn’t realised that they could use the on-demand bus service. However, fares and ticketing were complicated and they could only simulate a simplified booking and payments system which meant that a full MaaS experience couldn’t be tested (or, ultimately, implemented).
Bus reforms in Greater Manchester, culminating in franchising, will change this.
“We need to deploy all the means possible to make transport accessible”
“The available evidence is that [Mobility as a Service] grows the market” were announced in 2020, all three of which included plans to build MaaS data platforms; WECA (West of England Combined Authority), Solent, and Nottingham and Derby. They are at different stages of procurement, with two platforms procured (Solent and a pathfinder project targeted solely at University of Derby students) and two underway. However, those platforms that are in development have proved that the technology is the easiest part. The piecemeal, operator by operator integration is where the hard work begins. Each requires a bespoke legal contract which must be negotiated between the local authority team (requiring the participation of their lawyers) and operators. Both companies and authorities are under pressure so this can be a protracted process.
From the first full working week of September, maximum bus fares for adults in the conurbation have been capped at £2 for a single and £5 for a day ticket. The implications for MaaS in Manchester is that a future platform will be able to give a best price guarantee. Whilst TfGM has announced a partnership that will provide a journey planner covering the Greater Manchester region, ticketing will only follow in a later iteration. The current plan is to serve up the benefits of car-free travel and enable users to see the CO2 output for each trip, and prioritise journeys based on low carbon emissions, time taken, convenience and cost. Whilst this is laudable, only the combination with best value pricing will be reallyWhilstcompelling.theManchester process moves forward slowly, the bitter truth is that we need an order of magnitude of change and matching investment across transport and that this is a gargantuan task. We need to deploy all the means possible to make transport accessible and available and easy for all, so that in this crisis - which is unlikely to end any time soon - people can travel without it costing them (or all of us) the earth.
This piecemeal negotiation can also translate into a piecemeal experience of MaaS for the customer, with some operators requiring transactions to take place off the MaaS platforms whilst others are happy for the platform to collect and settle payments. In addition, apps which do not offer the best prices available, will have limited appeal. So the fares and tickets offered must be the best offer operators make, rather than a limited or more expensive range. Ensuring this universally has proved difficult. Only one MaaS platform currently in development is attempting a full account based ticketing integration with the local bus operator. The Derby Go app will integrate with Nottingham-based Trentbarton and also with campus-serving Uni bus. This means that bus ticket sales will be possible within the app, with dynamic ticketing available, journey history visible and account top-ups enabled. This is a very comprehensive, detailed and complex integration which, once complete, will mean that buses are available on the app in the same way they are available directly to Trentbarton passengers. This will be a development well worth watching. The app will be marketed particularly intensively to students arriving at the university before term starts to reduce the numbers bringing cars and to encourage those with cars to reduce their number of trips.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Beate Kubitz specialises in analysing new technology, agendas and behaviours and articulating their potential future impact.
chairmanHITRANS theHendersonAllanusingGO-HIapp
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 21
The faltering progress towards providing better services is indicative that the UK model for running a transport network probably isn’t the best one possible. However, with changes afoot we may soon have more models at our disposal then ‘London model’ versus ‘the rest’.
“Passenger transport is a people business so without the right staff, it is all rather pointless”
22 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
The big issue now is inflation and the cost of living crisis. If we assume that an inflationrelated pay rise is awarded to everyone, then inflation will never go away. If such awards are made for some but not others, the workforce becomes imbalanced with the result that many lose out in relation to rising costs. Experience tells us that the forces of economics do not land well for the majority. If it is the case that those who shout the loudest are rewarded, the divide widens, leaving many deserving workers behind. Standards of living become acute in places where housing in particular is disproportionately expensive, as alluded to by the shortlived Liz Truss stupidity of proposing regional pay rates. Recent events mean that at some point, the vast majority of households will not be able to pay their energy bills - a crisis awaits. For some individuals, this means bankruptcy and business failure, personal debt and loss of jobs and properties; government intervention on a large scale is needed.
Fair pay Pay is a touchy subject but it is interesting how government has been highlighting the good rates earned by many staff in the rail industry. Inevitably some roles are relatively poorly paid, but for many, there appears to be fair remuneration, taking into account factors such as anti-social hours and variable working conditions.Manyjobs on the railway are safety-critical and paid accordingly. With job security and long term opportunities, rail is a good industry to join. It is galling for those disrupted that when train drivers go on strike, they already earn more than many of their passengers. However, any additional cash for staff must be offset by productivity improvements and/or a massive boost in revenue from somewhere. As is mentioned from time to time, automation is the biggest threat to working practices, something that is highly applicable to trains and related systems, notably signalling. The plan to reduce the number of control centres means that jobs will be lost over time as part of natural succession. Replacing hundreds of signal boxes across Britain with just thirteen shows the scale of productivity improvement that is inevitable.
RICHARDSONNICK
Recent waves of strikes in various sectors have come at a time when there is huge uncertainty and a macroeconomy that is falling apart. Alongside postal workers, barristers and others, disputes about rail workers’ pay have resulted in widespread stoppages, further tarnishing the already wavering views of would-be travellers. Meanwhile, some bus staff have also been involved in strike action. The inconvenience results in potential users staying at home or finding other ways to get to where they need to be. Making life difficult for travellers emphasises the difficult situation in which users are being asked to pay more through regular price rises while their income isn’t keeping pace.
The problem with buses seems not to be recruitment but retention; when new entrants actually experience what is needed, they see the role as a job (an activity with payment) rather than a career (worth investing time and effort for ultimate reward). This is hugely significant because the commercial model for providing services goes to pieces when costs increase and/or the intended services cannot be provided. Bus and coach staff need better pay to stabilise businesses, but generating sufficient revenue to cover costs is unlikely. With other costs, such as fuel, rising alongside wages, there should no longer be an expectation that past practice can continue.
COMMENT
There are also anti-social hours, difficult situations and variable working conditions. But pay rates haven’t changed much for a very long time. Add in factors such as a need for childcare, then bus and coach is not as adaptable as other employment options.
This applies not just to drivers but to the engineering staff and others - I know of one depot where buses have been borrowed from elsewhere because there is no one to maintain the home fleet. To attract new staff of the right calibre and commitment, pay must be increased. This could well be at the expense of services in the shorter term to balance the books but replicates exactly what happens when markets shift in any other private sector industry.
The recent demise of Yellow Buses in Bournemouth exemplifies the problem; having had a long history of public service, the fall into administration was rapid. This is likely to be replicated elsewhere with the ever-present risk of poor cashflow and declining demand.
Striking a balancefor the sector
Comparing rail with road In the bus and coach sector, the effects of inflation are hitting hard. Despite having a high proportion of responsible and safetycritical jobs, the wages are far below those in the rail sector and are more comparable to retailing, healthcare or the service sector, none of which offer attractive remuneration.
There have been a flurry of strikes across the public transport sector in recent months, but direct action raises wider questions
www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 23
Disputes about rail workers’ pay have resulted in stoppageswidespread
Many years ago, I worked for a large bus group but wages were still negotiated locally. We were balloted about a proposed pay award - the options were to accept what I recall was a 0.24% pay increase or reject it, with a footnote explaining that rejection would be viewed as a breach of contract for which dismissal would result. The choice between a derisory pay award or no job at all may have been an instant fix but was as hopelessly inappropriate then as it is now. Passenger transport is a people business, so without the right staff, it is all rather pointless. Later, all the staff had their contracts terminated at midnight on a specified date to have them replaced with new contracts from that moment which worked for the business but didn’t do anything positive for the staff. Magic money If wage rates across the transport sector can be made attractive, the money has to come from somewhere. A parallel is the National Health Service which is reliant on capable and dedicated staff but makes life very difficult for them with limited prospects and unspectacular pay. Despite being widely appreciated, it cannot improve until there are more (and happier) workers who are paid appropriately otherwise the whole system collapses. It could be argued that any industry with this dire predicament can be baled out by the government, as seen with the banking sector, simply because it is essential. During the pandemic we saw vast amounts of money being thrown around as if it never needs to be paid back. Ironically, raised interest rates - inevitable in inflationary times - make it all worse. Now a government advising restraint contrasts sharply with the widespread support made available through the pandemic. It is inconceivable that the railway would be allowed to collapse but for buses and coaches, it is a major risk because losing parts of the industry can be tolerated. This is because it is largely in the private sector, unlike much of the railway. Should the situation deteriorate to a point where no bus operations can survive, even the larger groupings, would need salvaging. However, securing the sector before it falls apart appears less likely than waiting for a crisis to Interestingly,occur.the current rail disputes have got stuck in the grey area of what is public and what is private, a convenient reason for government not to intervene. To counteract this, there are misplaced ideas about how it all works. For example, a union leader once claimed that the basis of a dispute was that half the workers earned less than the average. Some knowledge of basic economics wouldn’t go amiss and a continuous cycle of demands, wage increases followed by cost increases is a route to disaster. On the other hand, there is now the opportunity to reduce the imbalances in the labour market and restructure the market for bus services in particular. Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering how the customer base can change rapidly, particularly for journeys that are very price-sensitive.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH: Tel:www.ciltuk.org.uk01536740100@ciltuk
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Richardson is Technical Principal at transport consultancy Mott MacDonald, chair of CILT’s Bus and Coach Policy Group and a former chair of the Transport Planning Society. In addition, he has held a PCV licence for over 30 years.
James Spencer Portland “Overall European coal consumption was up by almost 10%” ENERGY MARKET REPORT PORTLAND FUEL ANALYTICS - SEPTEMBER 2022
‘Old King Coal’keeps finding a role
However, even before the current energy crunch, there were convincing signs that coal - whilst in decline - was still a long way from dying. Firstly there is the fundamental problem of a continually growing global population and its corresponding increased energy needs. The optimistic interpretation of this situation is that new renewable energy sources can solve this conundrum. A more cynical (and operationally easier) approach might be to let existing energies take the strain. This means that the likes of coal will continue to play a role in the overall energy solution, and a first-hand example of this can be seen in China. This economic super-power is now the world’s largest investor in renewable energies and pre-pandemic (2019), the country’s renewable energy use grew by 25%. But even this was not enough to meet rocketing energy demand.
Even before the current energy crunch, there were convincing signs that coal - whilst in decline - was still a long way from dying
If we look ahead, there are also some major potential bumps in the road when it comes to reducing coal usage. Although there is now a fairly clear consensus on the impending electrification of the global car fleet, there is still much disagreement on, and lack of understanding of, the consequences of mass transport electrification. It goes without saying that electric cars can be fully powered by renewable energy (wind, solar etc), but electric vehicles are likely to be rolled out “en-masse” far quicker than the renewable energy sources to power them. Automotive analysts point to 2025 as a tipping point in e-mobility, whereas energy analysts are more likely to give 2030 as the milestone for renewable power provision. And even if we accelerate renewable energy projects, historical experience tells us that the exact matching of energy supply and demand is extremely difficult. Thus to roll out automotive electrification, at a rate that directly correlates with the commissioning of new wind and solar farms, will be impossible. The resulting peaks and troughs in energy demand will need to be met by stop-start power sources, of which coal is an old and trusty favourite… A combination of short-term crisis requirements, long-term energy growth and practical implications of the energy transition, all seem to point to a continued and robust use of coal. In the same way that the Saudis are banking on being the last man standing for oil, the Australian, South African and South American coal producers are increasingly taking the same position when it comes to “Old King Coal”. Yes, the market is shrinking and is nothing like it was 50 years ago, but it is still huge and - as the experiences of 2022 have demonstrated - extremely lucrative.
Over the last five years, it has become andApredictindustrycommon-placeincreasinglyinthetoconfidentlythedeathofcoal.combinationofcheapgasshinynewrenewable energy projects, would surely finally put paid to the dirty old man of the industry. However, in the light of this year’s momentous events, it seems fairly clear that such predictions were wrong. And in a world of searing summer temperatures in Europe (not to mention biblical floods in Australia and America), the return of coal is another unwelcome reminder of our inability to match environmental rhetoric with concrete action. In the run-up to the pandemic, there was good reason and ample evidence to suggest that coal was indeed on its way out. The percentage of US electricity from coal-fired generation was around 20% - down from 50% only 15 years earlier in 2005. Several European countries were regularly posting coal-free energy days and the UK in particular was running for prolonged coal-free periods. In 2019, Britain went for over 3,000 hours without coal-fired electricity (about 35% of the time) leading one government spokesman (from the Department of Energy) to publicly declare that “coal-generated energy will soon be a distant memory on our path to becoming a net zero emissions economy”. Sadly the Russian invasion of Ukraine has upended such sentiment and Europe in particular is now fervently stock-piling coal, in advance of a much feared 2022-23 “winter of discontent”. The major coal producing nations of South Africa, Australia and Colombia have all seen their exports to the EU increase by between 40-50% - an increase of over 40 million tonnes. Initially, this volume was to replace boycotted Russian coal that was no longer arriving on European shores, but as power generators clamoured for extra stock, underlying demand was also soon rising. By the mid-point of the year, overall European coal consumption was up by almost 10%, which for the producers presented a bonanza of both extra volume and (inevitably) higher prices. In 2021, the price of thermal (power generating) coal in Europe was $130 per tonne. By June 2022, that price had risen to over $400…
COMMENT
So the Chinese government is still in the process of building 150 (yes, you read that correctly) coal-fired power plants, to add to the 600 already in existence. This sounds less like decarbonisation and more like a carbonrenewable cohabitation.
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24 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
Doubtless Baroness Vere and Grant Shapps were expecting - even hoping - to be moved in the reshuffle so wouldn’t be transport ministers when the day of reckoning for the bus industry comes. The new secretary of state will hopefully have a good hard look at the status of bus and rail policy and have something of a pause for thought. I’m not advocating another rail review - God forbid! - but do we really think that the proposed Passenger Service Contracts limiting private sector rail operators’ profits to a maximum of 1.5% is sustainable?
And what’s to be done about the bus sector? Do we accept service cuts are inevitable and just take the political pain, or do we provide long term funding as we do for rail? The status quo, and the pretence that everything is just fine, doesn’t seem sustainable. That said, in announcing the provision of £60m to help bus operators cap bus fares at £2 for three months from January, Grant Shapps hinted that the government would “consider further support to help passengers continue accessing reliable and affordable services after March”. Last March we said the latest tranche of funding was “final”. Recognition, perhaps, that long term funding is unavoidable. Doubtless he was keen to make this announcement just before the reshuffle so he could feel he had gone out on a high!
To the new ministerial team here in Great Minster House, all I can say is “good luck”! Minster House,
And what if the new management team fails to win any of the new contracts when they come to market? Sure, Abellio currently has a pretty strong presence in the rail market, but we have seen before how big operators can all too easily lose their foothold - Stagecoach comes to mind.
home of the DfT “The UK public transport market looks inherently risky to me” GREAT GRUMBLESMINSTER www.passengertransport.co.uk 9 September 2022 | 25
Joining us? All I cansay is ‘good luck’! Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great
The UK public transport market looks inherently risky to me and far from growing is actually in decline, with the weekend rail travel being the only part of the market actually seeing growth - although that is more than off set by a huge drop in weekday commuter travel and therefore in revenue. I wish the management team - which will trade as Transport UK Group Limited - well, of course, and hope the new venture proves successful. But whichever way I look at this they have taken one massive risk. Back to buses. When the buses minister, Baroness Vere, wrote to operators in August to say that a further £130m of Bus Recovery Grant was being provided, thus for now avoiding the massive cuts in service that I have referenced, she said the government wants “to see operators investing in the sector in a responsible way for a long time to come”. I’m sure the government does. But how, exactly, are bus operators meant to invest in the sector when patronage is depressed and all the signs are that cuts, not expansion and investment, are on the horizon? It’s almost as if there is a sense of denial that things are as difficult as they are.
I have yet to find anybody who understands, at least in private, why anybody would risk money, let alone their own money, acquiring a UK bus or rail company. We are on the brink of seeing major cuts to commercial bus services, with the evil day only pushed back from this autumn to next spring thanks to a last-minute further injection into the industry of £130m of Bus Recovery Grant. I’m hearing that the cuts could be as high as 30% of current service levels.
COMMENT
So, as expected, Liz Truss is our new prime minister. I’ll comment on the reshuffle in my next column, but for now I want to focus on the latest hot rail and bus news that Abellio has been bought by a management buy-out team led by chief executive Dominic Booth. I’ve expressed surprise in recent weeks over various overseas interests buying Stagecoach and Go-Ahead, and hovering over FirstGroup, given that the opportunity to make any serious profits out of the UK public transport industry is vanishingly small, even non-existent. But why would a management buy-out team be interested in acquiring a UK bus and rail operator when they would be even more aware of the perilous state of the public transport sector? Even more surprising is that Dominic Booth is reported to be putting up his own money to help finance the deal.
In rail, under the new Passenger Service Contracts train operators will only be able to make a maximum 1.5% profit and that assumes good performance - performance which as a train operator you are largely not in control of.
For bus, Abellio is known for its preference for the franchise model. Well, right now outside of London the only franchise opportunity on the table is with Greater Manchester, while the London bus market is also set to see material cuts in services.
If this opportunity excites you get in touch with us today by sending your CV and covering letter outlining why you believe you are the right person to James Vallance, General Manager at jvallance@safeguardcoaches.co.uk by 23 September 2022. To discuss this opportunity informally frst please contact James by email.
Boyd is Lothiannewboss
You will already have had involvement in the commercial or fnancial aspects of a coach and/or bus business or local transport responsibilities within a local authority and be looking for your next career move.
BRIGHTON & HOVE Brighton & Hove and Metrobus have announced appointmenttheof Alex Chutter as operations director. He will succeed Kevin Carey who will retire in December. Chutter (pictured) joins from sister company Go South Coast where he is presently the general manager for Swindon Bus Company, Salisbury Reds and the coaching division. He joined Go South Coast as a graduate trainee in 2011. After completing his training, he was appointed staff manager for Morebus, and then operations manager of Salisbury Reds and Tourist Coaches, expanding his role in 2017 as general manager of Swindon’s Bus Company.
Reporting to the General Manager, the successful candidate will take direct responsibility for the commercial aspects of the business and also have fnancial analysis and IT responsibilities.
Nottingham Trams, the operator of the Nottingham Express Transit light rail network, has appointed Chris Wright as managing director. Wright (pictured) was previously commercial director for East Midlands Railway, which saw him lead teams responsible for marketing, retail and external relations and act as the primary interface with the Department for Transport to manage contracts and new business opportunities. Prior to this Wright was fleet director at East Midlands Trains, engineering and commercial director at Vossloh Kiepe UK and a depot manager for train operator London Midland.
Operations director replaces Nigel Serafini, becoming the company’s first ever female MD
Competitive Salary, Surrey Due to the promotion of the existing postholder we are ofering a rare opportunity to join a highly respected family-owned bus and coach company in a signifcant management role so that it can take advantage of the exciting opportunities that it believes are ahead.
Tis is a rewarding role ofering lots of variety and opportunity to see the fruits of your work thanks to our fat management structure and no corporate HQ or bureaucracy!
APPOINTMENTS
“We have an incredible team of colleagues across our business who go above and beyond every day to deliver for our customers ... I am committed to giving those colleagues a platform to showcase their ability and continuously improve and develop, highlighting Lothian as a great place to work, and a great place to develop a career.”Lothian chair Jim McFarlane, commented: “With a strong record as Lothian’s operations director, I’m sure [Sarah Boyd] will be at the forefront of Lothian’s resurgence as the industry leader we know it to be ... Having navigated the challenges of the global pandemic, Lothian is now on a strong path for recovery and we look forward to a bright future under Sarah’s stewardship.”
CAREERS 26 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
COMMERCIAL MANAGER
Sarah Boyd: ‘Key objective is economicstability’ Sarah Boyd has been appointed as the new managing director of Lothian, the UK’s largest remaining municipal bus operator. Boyd moves on from her role as operations director to replace former boss Nigel Serafini, who retired from the Edinburgh-based business earlier this month after 21 years of service. Her appointment represents a shift in direction for the business, keen to move on from the struggles of the pandemic and continue to contribute to a more sustainable, greener city. As the first female managing director of Lothian, Boyd hopes to promote a fair, people-focused and inclusive workplace culture. The transport industry is ingrained in Boyd. Having studied a BSc in Mathematics and Finance at Heriot Watt University, she joined Stagecoach’s graduate scheme in 2002 and undertook various positions within the group before joining Lothian in 2013 as head of operations, stepping up to take on the role of operations director in Commenting2017.on her appointment, Boyd said: “I would like to thank Nigel Serafini for his efforts over the last two and a half years as Lothian navigated the challenges brought about as the result of the global pandemic.
“I am proud to be in a position to lead this award-winning business, and my key objective is to steer the company into economic stability so that we can continue to enhance Lothian’s reputation as an industry leader. We fully support the Scottish Government’s targets for net zero emissions by 2045 and are committed to embracing technology to meet those goals.
NOTTINGHAMTRAMS
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Adam’s planning a life on the buses
SEEN SOMETHING QUIRKY?
Adam was given a whistlestop tour of the bus company and tried his hand at a variety of jobs, from engineering, to operations and was even put through his paces on one of the operator’s training buses. Fareham depot opens its doors to 15-year old Adam
DIVERSIONS 28 | 9 September 2022 www.passengertransport.co.uk
The kids are alright Picture the scene - you’re waiting at the local tram stop when a tram pulls up, but instead of passengers, it’s filled to the brim with fresh produce grown by local farms -
THE NEXT THING IN RETAIL: THE TRAM better than that, it’s all for saleThetoo!German city of Karlsruhe is well known for helping to create the tram-train concept. Now students at the nearby University of Offenburg have mooted converting one recently pensioned off member of the Karlsruhe tram-train fleet into a fully-fledged mobile farm shop. Their idea is that the tram would collect produce from local farms and then make regular calls around the Karlsruhe tram network. During these scheduled Get onboard! stops that would last about an hour, shoppers would board the tram and stock up on fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and anything else that’s produced by carefully selected farms in the area. In a hurry? No problem! Shoppers would also be able to preorder their purchases online, and then pick up their shopping from the most convenient stop. I’m sure you will agree this is a concept we can all get aboard with. Sadly for now it’s just an idea floated by some students as part of their coursework. “I would describe myself as a keen bus enthusiast but wasn’t sure what route to go down to work in the transport industry,” said Adam. “I applied for work experience placement and couldn’t wait to get started. It was great, I spent time, with the training school, engineering and operations departments, where I got first-hand experience of what happens behind the scenes.” Instructor David York added: “We had the pleasure of Adam joining the team for work experience and I personally felt privileged to have been part of his experience. It was encouraging that someone of Adam’s age wants to learn about the industry.”
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The Tyne and Wear Metro’s oldest ever driver has taken a wellearned retirement aged 75, after clocking up more than 40 years of service on the network. Former bus driver Richard Neesham first started driving Metrocars in 1981, not long after the network first opened. His length of service makes him the oldest person to drive a train on the Metro system. “I must have carried millions of passengers over all those years,” said Richard. “I’m one of a small number of drivers who have been there since the system opened. There aren’t that many of us left now.”
completedShift TIME TO CLOCK OFF FOR METRO DRIVER
There’s lots of concerns regarding recruitment and retention in the bus industry, so it’s good to see First’s bus operations in Fareham have found themselves a super keen future employee. 15-year old Adam attends Horndean Technology College and dreams one day of pursuing a career within the transport industry. First Bus recently stepped in to give him a taste of life on the buses at his local depot.
